This patent application generally relates to the forming of plastic and, more specifically, relates to the forming of plastic using a heated mold in contact with plastic particles, whether they be in the form of powder, resins, pellets or the like.
Although conventional methods of forming plastics are good, there is always room for improvement. There are many ways to make plastics, but there are few ways to make plastic articles which are lightweight, strong, fire retardant, bullet proof, insulative, impact resistant, as well as having a decorative, textured or functional skin, or made with plastic in a single layer on a heated mold. Furthermore, there are few ways taught in the prior art of embedding articles within the plastic, in order to either reinforce the article or to change its properties. Moreover, there are even fewer ways known in the art for including various materials throughout the body of an article without having seams, including multiple layer structures and various materials dispersed throughout the surface of the article.
Although it is known to put inserts into injection molded plastic articles, the present inventors do not know of any other low temperature, low pressure methods which can completely suspend an insert, reinforcement, foam core or other sandwiched material within the plastic material itself. It would be advantageous for such a method of forming plastic, as well as one to utilize such relatively low temperatures, ambient pressures and the ability to use inexpensive and easily machined molds which will last for an entire production of an article. Of course, it would also be advantageous for such a method to be capable of using recycled materials.
Such a new method of forming plastic would be usable for a huge multitude of applications, including, but certainly not limited to: automotive and industrial vehicle components; modular housing panels; airplane components; consumer and industrial furniture such as tables, tabletops and the like; doors; windows; material handling pallets and other articles; consumer goods; industrial articles; marine applications and boat hulls; molds and components, including seawalls, boat hulls and the like; medical apparatuses and other applications; scaffolding and other building construction articles; sea containers; railroad containers; composite wheels for trains, vehicles and food shipping containers including food containers of all sizes and shapes, just to name some of the applications. Each of these applications will include various forms of the plastic articles, including various materials sandwiched between two or more skins in order to produce the desired material properties.
One of the largest applications for the present invention and technology is the creation of automobile vehicle components, including pick-up truck boxes, roof components, underbody components, and the like. In an industry which traditionally used steel for its components, the automotive vehicle manufacturers in Detroit and abroad are seeking lightweight plastic components for their vehicles because the new stricter fuel economy regulations are forcing them to rethink how they manufacture vehicles. Environmentally friendly politicians in various governments, including Washington, D.C., are backing regulations which will press the automotive industry hard into developing more fuel-efficient vehicles. Currently, the best selling vehicles in the United States are heavy trucks and sport utility vehicles, all of which have poor fuel economy due to their massive size and incredibly high weights. For most of these vehicles that weigh 4,000 to 6,500 pounds, normal side roads with a gross weight limit of one and a half tons will crack under a sustained weight such as these vehicles.
The easiest way to achieve a more fuel-efficient vehicle is to reduce the weight. One way to reduce the weight is to remove various steel portions and replace them with lightweight, strong plastic, such as the topic of the present invention. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or “CAFE”, is increasingly putting demands on the automotive industry because of the growing evidence of the vehicle pollution-caused greenhouse effect and other environmental maladies. The change to plastic components has huge implications for the American automotive industry which is already facing pinched profits and dented sales with the slow economy. The Big 3 automakers in the United States say that tougher mileage rules, particularly for sport utility vehicles, could cost each of the companies several billion dollars over the next few years and would seriously hurt their profits. In one answer to meeting the new CAFE standards, some of the automobile manufacturers have pledged to launch the new highly efficient hybrid vehicles, which are part electric and part gasoline having much lower pollution emissions.
However, it is widely acknowledged that the new hybrid technology alone will not suffice to achieve the CAFE standards which are on the horizon. Automakers admit that they will have to start selling many more lighter-weight vehicles, such as compact sport utility vehicles, to meet new fuel economy standards. Of the 11.4 million vehicles which Detroit automakers sold last year, 59 percent were trucks or SUVs. And of America's top ten best selling trucks, sport utility vehicles and mini-vans, all fall far short of the current gas standards, as measured by their combined average highway and city miles per gallon. The current CAFE standard for trucks is 20.7 miles per gallon, although most of the trucks and SUVs have fuel efficiencies from 13 mpg to 18 mpg.
As the advent of the electric hybrid vehicles are not the only solution to the automakers complying with CAFE standards, it becomes clear that improving gas mileage of sport utility vehicles and trucks is the easy target. It is an easy target because the SUVs and trucks are very heavy and they get the worst fuel economy of almost any vehicle on the road. For example, the Ford Motor Company's Excursion SUV only achieves 13 miles per gallon for city driving. The current predictions by Detroit automakers is that if the current proposed boosted truck standards of 24 mpg, at an increase of 3.3 miles per gallon from present 20.7 mpg standards, this would cause the automakers to lose sales of over 1 million large pick-ups and sport utilities. And, as always, the industry warns that they won't be the only one hurt. They say that the price added onto vehicles to make them more fuel-efficient will cost our economy close to 300,000 jobs. The standard solution in Japan to increasing the fuel mileage of vehicles is, industry wide, to improve small cars and their gas mileage, to sacrifice horse power at the expense of fuel efficiency, particularly for sport utility vehicles, to boost fuel-efficiency research and development in order to develop fuel-efficient engines for cars and SUVs, as well as to curb production of the largest SUVs which are the main culprits in lowering Detroit's average fuel efficiency for trucks.
Therefore, it would be of a great advantage to significantly reduce the weight of pick-up trucks and sport utility vehicles, thereby boosting the fuel economy and thereby alleviating the payment of fines for exceeding CAFE standards. It would be most advantageous, and most environmentally friendly, to make plastic vehicle components. Although the use of conventional plastics is a huge advancement, we may take this trend a step further by using biodegradable plastics or those made from renewable sources, such as the polylactic acid polymer being proposed by Cargill Dow and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The new corn-based biodegradable polymer is called polylactic acid (PLA), and may be utilized in various components of the present invention. Furthermore, plastics were made for automobiles as early as the 1920s by Henry Ford, from plastics made from the hemp plant.
In one prototype made in accordance with the present invention, a Dodge Dakota truck had its steel truck box bed replaced with a plastic truck box made in accordance with the present invention. The weight savings was 95 pounds. This is incredible considering the fact that Chrysler has been asking its suppliers to shave ounces off of the parts that they are supplying. To save nearly 100 pounds per vehicle will have an enormous effect on the gas consumption and fuel economy. Furthermore, due to the extreme light weight, a dump truck configuration is possible, as well as a scissors-jack man lift configuration. As an impact-resistant material may be utilized, the truck box bed can handle slow accidents with minimal damage to the pickup truck box. In addition, it would be of great advantage to be able to embed conduits and/or wire harnesses directly into the plastic truck box bed itself, thereby allowing a plug-in operation once the pickup truck box has been placed on the chaise. It would also be advantageous to provide a method for forming plastic for such a pickup truck box that would allow heavy metal components to extend therefrom in order to give a mounting device to the chaise of the vehicle, such as is possible with the present invention.
In yet another embodiment, it would be advantageous to be able to easily and inexpensively form modular housing panels which can be clipped together and caulked in place to make rapid housing. For instance, there are currently over 1.5 million Afghanistan refugees caused by war in their country. Other third-world nations would be excellent candidates for such modular housing components. There is a long felt need for a cheap, lightweight and inexpensive, insulated clip together housing component which can be manufactured on site, as well as manufactured in a plant back at a home base and then shipped to the location itself. As one may be aware, Rubbermaid Corporation of Ohio in the United States makes many little work sheds and garden sheds for use in a back yard, although these sheds are not suitable for human living conditions. However, those sheds are made by injection molding which does not lend itself well to even larger products, and the molds are extremely expensive for ones of that size to be used for production. It would be a great advantage to utilize very inexpensive molds, recycled materials and insulation which can be embedded within a plastic composite article such that a useful modular house can be made in a very short period of time.
It would further be useful to be able to embed conduits and/or electrical wires themselves directly into the plastic panels. Plug-in devices could extend from the panels and the panels could be directly plugged into one another, or if conduits were embedded into the modular housing components, then electrical wires could be run as easily and quickly as they are in conventional homes by licensed electricians. By setting up an exterior generator station, an entire complex of clipped together houses could be rapidly outfitted with electric heat, electric lights and cooking devices. Sewage treatment could also be molded into the panels, such as the electric incinerating toilets commonly used in Japan and on boats. The insulated panels could have R-values of up to 100 or more, making electric heat feasible. This would remove any temptation to heat with dangerous carbon monoxide gas-generating heating devices, such as kerosene lamps, fires, and the like.
In the event that a plastic modular housing panel is made in accordance with the present invention, it is also possible for windows and doors to be molded into the panels, as well as toilet incinerator outlet stacks and roofing components. In addition to large panels being made from the plastic, it would also be advantageous to provide various smaller components, similar to clipped together “logs” in order to allow for the greatest number of configurations for the modular house itself.
It would also be advantageous to provide methods, apparatuses and articles for a multitude of other applications, too numerous to mention here.